Memories of something that never happened
by Momamoon
Summary: How to survivre there without dreams? How to survive there without you?
1. Your touch

She wakes up, breathless. It's still night, she can feel it without opening her eyes, the warm darkness wrapped all around her body. The others are certainly still asleep - she can almost feel their calm and rhythmic respiration, like a common heartbeat, like if they were one unique entity. She can hear the little current of water snaking around her bed; she can smell the discreet, fresh perfume of the green plants. She wonders if their artificial night coincides exactly with the natural circadian rhythm - or if outside the sun already spreaded its watercolor rays of light above the breathing earth... She likes to imagine the basement being surrounded by nature, fertile fields and deep forests. It's a little too warm here, the atmosphere is moist and heavy - which make her think it's probably hot Summer outside. Her hair curls from sweat at her forehead and her throat is a little dry.

The blood buzzing at her temples reminds her that her night have been agitated - full of dreams, so vivid that they still resonate in her bones, echoes of the past impregnating her flesh of memories; the touch of a hand brushing her cheek, a tender kiss on her forehead, the feeling of being hugged tightly by someone loved… These intense sensations haunting her dreams disturbed her so much the first times, that she started crying in her sleep and waking up soaked of tears, almost asphyxiated. But with time, she learned how to appreciate it, how to find some comfort in these stolen moments of imaginary tenderness. She knows that if she's enough focused on her sensations, if she manages to relax and reach a special state of consciousness, something like a kind of auto hypnosis, she can replay it as much as she wants, provoking the kinesthetic memories back and back again until she feels a little less empty, a little more alive. She wonders if Homer experiences this too, he who had the most useful advices and comforting words when she arrived, he who knows how precious dreams can be to survive their unbearable condition. Homer… Is he still asleep? She doesn't hear any sound from his side. These thoughts distract her from her dreams, and she feels almost totally awake mentally now. She stretches her muscles slowly, legs, arms, neck, then rolls on her side, facing the glass separating her from the other cell, her eyes still closed, her body heavy from too much sleep.

Homer faces her, as if he was waiting for her, laying on his side too. He can see her almost clearly, despite the low luminosity. Her silhouette guessed in the dark, her disheveled head and the curve of her shoulder, the naked bright white skin of her stomach, the wave of her hip bone at the hem of her dress. He doesn't move, absorbed in his contemplation, not sure if she's still sleeping or not, worried to disturb her peaceful moment. She knows instinctively when someone is watching her - so she opens her eyes, and greet him with a soft smile. Naturally, in a common and instinctive movement, they place their palms against the glass, meeting there silently. They use to spend more and more time like this these days, just facing each other in silence, just enjoying each other presence through the window - their hands caressing the glass to meet, fingertips against fingertips, tracing words and signs that only them understand, a new secret language that allow them to communicate without having to talk, creating a safe bubble around them where they are free to express their feelings.

Moved by his desire to be closer to Prairie, Homer rest his forehead against the fresh glass, a shy smile coming to his lips. With his thumb, he traces Prairie's features, the contour of her jawline and the delicate shape of her lips, caressing her chin tenderly. Their respiration create a little cloud of warm steam on the glass. Prairie inhales deeply - she's still so relaxed and sleepy that she can almost feel Homer's hand on her face, or at least she wish she could so intensely that her mind hallucinates his caresses. The craving for his touch never stops growing - and these shared moments of tenderness make her feel so restless innerly that she suddenly feels the need to act it out. Slowly, she moves her fingers to her cheekbone, lips, chin, caressing herself so softly that her tender skin starts tingling and burning gently - electricity spreading in her arms and legs as she imagines Homer's skin against her own. Homer smiles a little wider, his green eyes blinking slowly as he moves his hand to Prairie's neck, following the sharp angle of her shoulders, detailing her features carefully through the glass, as if she was able to feel it; Prairie's hand following the movement on her own body, deliciously . Against the glass, Homer's hand cups the bone of her hip before reaching her stomach, applying his whole palm against the glass, covering her skin totally, then playing light fingertips around her belly button. And Prairie's smile fades away as she traces lines and circles on her sweaty skin, lost in sensations, breathing sharply - always keeping eyes contact with Homer, following his gestures instinctively as if they were intimately connected, as if they were parts of the same person.

Sitting in front of his monitoring computers, Hap observe their two silhouettes moving slowly in the dark, mimicking each other movements, red and orange spots of heat covering their bodies at the most warm places, disclosing the intimacy of the moment. He can't help but notice the feverish rhythm of their hands and how they move closer to the glass, always closer... Unable to stop watching them, he wipes his sweaty forehead, then brutally push a button, turning the lights on in the cells. The white, artificial light of the neons dazzles the two prisoners who stay immobile, lost in each other's eyes, breathless, their bodies glued to the glass, so close, much closer maybe than they would ever be if they were able to touch each other properly. They stay there, unable to stop the contact, surprised in the evidence of their love transcending the moment, creating from their horrible experience the most deep, unbreakable bond they could have ever experienced.


	2. Medicine

(Lyrics: "Medicine", Daughter)

* * *

Every day the same schema, repeated ad nauseam.

Waking up in this old bedroom - the head underneath the covers, hidden in the soothing darkness, eyes closed. Imagining the layers of fabric protecting me like a grave. Why this light asphyxia relaxes me so much? A layer of feathers, a layer of wood, a layer of rocks... Why always searching to recreate this feeling of confinement? Here I am, searching comfort in my old miseries. It's a never ending story. And you're lost somewhere in the way - but in my back or forward, I'll find you. I'll find you.

 ** _Pick it up, pick it all up. And start again._**  
 ** _You've got a second chance, you could go home._**  
 ** _Escape it all. It's just irrelevant._**

 ** _It's just medicine._**  
 ** _It's just medicine..._**

Body sore and dry throat, no dreams to remember. The medicine kills all the pictures, good and bad, memories and dreams, here and there. How to fill this empty place in my head? How to feel whole again? The door of the old bedroom has been removed. She's here. She's always here, around, worried, intrusive, she gives me breakfast pills with my eggs and toast. "They said", she says, again and again, "They said it's good for you"... Everyone have a word about it. Except me. I pretend to swallow it with my orange juice. I want to go for a walk - she look at me by the window. But she can't see me and I close my eyes when I cross the street - here or there, I'll find you, I'll find you.

 _ **You've got a warm heart,**_  
 _ **You've got a beautiful brain.**_  
 _ **But it's disintegrating,**_  
 _ **From all the medicine.**_  
 _ **From all the medicine...**_

And I spend hours in this bathtub, diluting my body in the warm water until I can't feel my legs and arms anymore, until my pain is dulled into the pink bubbles. Contained and lulled by the water, I recover slowly, my memories and my dreams like disorganised pieces of myself... But she hear me crying and talking to myself or to you, and she's always around, giving me blue pills to cut off my thoughts, to fool my brain like if nothing happened. But the pills are melting in the hot water, and I hide myself under the covers, searching for you here or there, in this reality or another - and I know I'll find you, I'll find you.

 _ **You could still be**_  
 _ **What you want to**_  
 _ **What you said you were,**_  
 _ **When I met you**_  
 _ **When you met me.**_  
 _ **When I met you...**_


	3. Homer's dream

It's daytime. Maybe. Probably. For them, at least. It's what the white artificial light of the neons indicates : daytime, time to move around, time to quit the soothing darkness of the night, dreams and demons tangled up in the messy duvet. Out of bed, lambs. Wake up, wake up. Slowly, in silence, bathed and dazzled by the sudden luminosity, the prisoners start to move, every one of them stumbling out their night clumsily as a little drunk, a little high from the freedom sleep provides, temporarily. She stays a moment laying down on her bed, eyes closed, reconnecting her senses with this reality. Still paralysed in her sleepiness, she enjoys deeply the ghostly feeling in her legs and arms - she almost can't feel them at all, like if she runned for hours. She's desensitized, she's so lightweight she could maybe be floating above her bed right now. She likes to think that she's only half present here, half real, when she's like this, eyes closed, her whole body painless, inexistent, empty - with this only movement, independent, involuntary, at the center of her chest, her soul breathing rhythmically, her blood beating her ribs slowly - breathe in, breathe out, breathe in...

But she can't help noticing the sounds around her - she's always so much more focused when she closes her eyes - and these external stimuli achieve to wake her up totally. She can almost see them behind her eyelids: the others, the morning routine, one masticating the awful animal food, without disgust but without satisfaction, one other plunging his hands in the small water current to wash his face, Rachel mumbling or humming a song as always, while she stretches her legs out of bed… Like fallen from a cloud, she's suddenly very conscious of her whole body. The sweaty sensation where the sheets wrapped her skin a little too tight, the air on her feet, how her face remains immobile with her mouth slightly open... Breathe in, breathe out. Her respiration warms up the droplets of sweat on her upper lip. She's thirsty now. She literally rolls out of bed, eyes still closed - she knows exactly how to orientate her gestures blindly in the small cell - until her fingertips meet the small river. Laying on her stomach against the fresh stone of the floor, she cups the water in her hands and drink some refreshing sips.

She frowns, feeling a presence in front of her, and blinks slowly to adapt to the new luminosity. In the next cell, Homer is laying under his bed, with just his jeans on, his naked back against the window. Curled up in a foetal position. His body is gently shaken with light tremors and she can hear a weak sound from his side, like a whisper or a sob. Cautiously, she crosses the little current of water and creep to the glass, then sits against it, her palm touching the place where is Homer's head, her fingertips warm and moist glued to the glass.

\- Homer...?

At distance, Rachel look at her briefly - she's stretching her back and legs in the middle of her cell - "Let him alone", she says almost rudely, before adding with a softer tone: "... It's his dreams. It happens sometimes". Her cheek against the glass, Prairie spreads her fingers then strums the window gently around Homer's head, who wrap his own arm around his opposite shoulder, as to hug himself. She still sees the soft movements shaking his body - and she can't help thinking about how little children are crying, these incontrolable gasps that seem to last eternally but always fade away after a time, and then comes the peace, the welcome soothing tiredness...

\- Homer.

She keeps caressing the window softly, her fingers playing piano around Homer's head. Maybe he can feel it, not her touch, of course, but her intention to comfort and hold him through his pain. She can't really hear him crying - with all the noises around, the water, the others talking and moving in their cells - but it's almost like she can feel it, inside, like a knot pushing down her diaphragme. She knows about the dreams. She experiences it herself sometimes, when she wakes up soaked of tears and sweat, unable to remember where she is for a moment that seems to last forever, full of pictures and sensations from the past, memories so vivid. She knows how hard it can be to reconnect with their reality and accept to let the dreams fade away, but it's a necessity here for coping and survive.

\- Talk to me, please. Where were you…?

She can see Homer's back muscles moving as his fist grabs his own shoulder, in an instinctive attempt to hold himself. His movement is followed by a faint voice, almost a whisper that she guess more than she really hears: "Home". Home. She notices how this simple word gives her goosebumps instantaneously. It's the first time someone dare to say it since she arrived, breaking one of the unspoken rules of their little community. She can't really imagine how is Homer's home, with the little she knows about him and his past, but she can't help visualizing a pretty little house, calm and modest suburbs, with a red door and a simple garden around, flowers and a fruit tree, maybe cherries. But home isn't more a place than the persons who live here, and she asks very softly, cautious: "Were you alone...?"

There is a silence that last some seconds, and she's not sure she have been heard. Then Homer slowly turns his face towards the glass window, over his shoulder. There is no eyes contact between them. His eyes are tired, teary and circled of pink, and he's staring blankly at Prairie's hand, palm pressed against the window. The young woman push her forehead against the fresh glass, closer to him.

\- She's here. He's in her arms, at first, then she puts him on the grass...

She can sees it, the woman in the garden, beautiful and luminous in the morning light, their child in her arms. No need to describe it; it's almost like if she can read his mind right now. Homer's hand reach Prairie's hand while he's talking, his fingertips wandering in her palm like if he was drawing something from memory, something he wants to remember forever.

\- He is so... He's so big. He looks at me, and starts to walk. I can hear his little voice, his giggles, I can see his smile, he smiles to me, he is so beautiful…

Then suddenly Homer's green eyes plunge into Prairie's ones, and his lips draw an infinitely soft smile, starting at the corner of his mouth then spreading light on all his face. His eyes are still full of dreams and contained tears and he looks exhausted, exhausted but strangely, inexplicably happy.

\- My baby boy.

\- ... He is alright, whisper Prairie, her vision blurred by the tears.

\- I know, I know he is alright. He is alright.

His smile grows wider and wider as he allow himself to cry openly, his warm tears beading on his cheekbones. The young woman giggles softly, a sincere smile answering her lover's one. They're now both sitting face to face, their foreheads touching against the glass window, their hands joined despite the wall separating their cells. It's daytime. Maybe. Probably. For them, at least, the dreams and the demons will stay tangled up in the messy duvet, waiting for them to elaborate another escape plan… In dreams they will always find peace.


End file.
